Letter: Call out school bullying

To the Editor:

Just a reminder to local residence, kids are back in school! Yay! New outfits, new shoes, new backpacks filled with supplies.

Old friends get together, new friendships are made. Schedules memorized, teams chosen. And always the kid who is left out. Fresh meat for the schoolyard bully.

You remember the type: maybe a little bigger, maybe a little more cash in his wallet, not necessarily smarter. He mocks, uses threats and dares, name calling, ridicule, isolation and divisive “us against them” banality. Bystanders are fervently hoping the bully’s appetite for humiliation skips them, and feasts on someone else, even if it lands on someone they know.

Few step forward to confront. Yet going “toe to toe” with a bully is sometimes all it takes to make the bully slink back into his warren, gold plated, though it may be.

We don’t need to condemn the bully. Perhaps he had a difficult childhood that has turned him into the tyrant he has become. Neither should we turn a blind eye to the damage he inflicts. If we shy away from protecting the victim, we can at least oppose the bully.

Let’s model for our children our brave approach to confront bullies. We can remove our attention and approval. We can call out bullying when he uses it as a rallying call. We can choose another path and walk it confidently with others who know that bullying is always defeated in the end.

It may take an election cycle…or two. But bullies always lose in the end.

Sharon Nicola

DeKalb